The students were continuing their protest against the new citizenship law enacted last December. Reports said they were supposed to march to the memorial of India’s founding father, Mahatma Gandhi, but were stopped just outside JMI.
India is observing the 72nd anniversary of Gandhi’s death on Thursday.
Nathuram Godse, Gandhi’s assassin, was a member of the Hindu nationalist group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which provided the ideological foundation for Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The law granting citizenship to non-Muslims who migrated from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan is believed to discriminate against India’s 180 million Muslim population.